Reporting project performance is a key function of successful project management. The project team and stakeholders must be kept well-informed on project status at regular intervals throughout the project as well as when any changes are made to the project. There are many project characteristics which can be included in the Project Performance Report. Some of these include analysis of project performance to date, risk and issue status, work completed during current reporting period/next reporting period, significant accomplishments, forecasts, variance analysis, and project changes. While there’s no standard format, the project manager should meet with the project sponsor and key stakeholders in order to agree to a format and what will be included in the performance report (as shown in this project performance report template). They should also agree on how often the report will be distributed. These agreements should be documented in the Project Communications Management Plan.
The Project Performance Report should always be distributed to the meeting participants in advance of any meetings to allow time to review the content. The purpose of the report is to summarize and communicate project information to inform all stakeholders as well as provide an objective analysis of the project’s performance. Below are some sample outputs of a notional Project Performance Report for a project developing a new tooling product called the Z Tool.
1. Analysis of Past Performance – To date the Z tool project has been highly successful. All project team members continue to be engaged with their assigned tasks and all activities and milestones to date have been met. As the project now enters the product testing phase, the project team has successfully accomplished the planning, design, and build of the prototype Z Tool. Throughout the planning, design, and build phases of the Z Tool Project we have a cumulative Schedule Variance of -$3,500 and a Cost Variance of $500 (see Table 1 below). Our cumulative SPI is 0.98 with a cumulative CPI of 1.00. This indicates that while the project is slightly behind schedule, it is within our approved tolerance and we expect to be back on schedule within the next week as we enter the testing phase as we have accounted for non-mandatory testing in the project schedule. Our CPI indicates that the project is exactly on cost up to this point.
| Project Cost and Schedule Performance Report | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project: | Date: | ||||||
| WBS Element | Planned Value (PV) | Earned Value (EV) | Actual Cost (AC) | Schedule Variance (SV) | Cost Variance | Schedule Performance Index (SPI) | Cost Performance Index (CPI) |
| 1.0 Product Planning | $45,000 | $43,500 | $44,000 | ($1,500) | ($500) | 0.97 | 0.99 |
| 2.0 Product Design | $75,000 | $73,000 | $71,000 | ($2,000) | $2,000 | 0.97 | 1.03 |
| 3.0 Product Build | $90,000 | $90,000 | $91,000 | $0 | ($1,000) | 1.00 | 0.99 |
| 4.0 Product Testing | $55,000 | ||||||
| 5.0 Product Implementation | $35,000 | ||||||
| Totals: | $300,000 | $206,500 | $206,000 | ($3,500) | $500 | 0.98 | 1.00 |
2. Current Status of Risks and Issues – To date the project team has performed exceptionally in identifying, mitigating, avoiding, or resolving many risks and issues. While the team is currently addressing additional risks and issues, we do not expect any impact to the scope, schedule, or cost of the Z Tool project. As new risks and issues are identified they will be added to the risk and issue logs in accordance with the Risk Management Plan and communicated to all stakeholders. Additionally, as risks and issues are resolved, all stakeholders will be notified as well.
3. Significant Achievements – The project team has achieved a fully functional prototype of the Z Tool. While testing must still be conducted as we enter the next phase of the project, we fully expect that the prototype will perform well and any issues identified during testing will be minimal.
4. Work to be performed in the next reporting period includes full scale material, performance, and field testing of the Z Tool. The prototype will be subjected to standard organizational testing methods and the approved performance standards will be applied. While engineering resources will be released back to their functional organizations, it may be necessary to seek further engineering support if issues are identified during testing. This possibility has been documented in the Resource Management Plan.
5. There was one project change identified and implemented during the last reporting period. This change called for changing the Z Tool handle’s material from steel to rubber in order to improve the tool’s ergonomics. This change was approved, implemented, and all product design and project documentation has been updated and distributed to all stakeholders.
6. The forecasted estimate at completion (EAC) for the Z Tool project was determined using the budget at completion (BAC) divided by the cumulative CPI to this point in the project. The EAC has been calculated to be $300,000 which equals the budgeted amount for this project.
7. During this past reporting period the project team performed extremely well. I would like to single out J. Doe for his exceptional engineering support and ensuring that all design work reflected the approved handle change for the Z Tool. J. Doe also worked extremely long hours in bringing the prototype of the Z Tool to completion.
A lesson learned from this reporting period is that the earlier in the project changes are identified and approved, the easier the project team can implement the change and remain on schedule. This lesson will be included in the project closeout documentation and archived.